In the Gender & COVID-19 blog, Council researchers Chi-Chi Undie, Nicole Haberland, Sanyukta Mathur, Isabel Vieitez, and Julie Pulerwitz examine how the COVID-19 pandemic unearths several important gender dimensions and implications before, during, and after data collection.
The authors tackle considerations around training of data collectors, the choice of participants, modalities and methods for data collection, and service and support provisions for participants and collectors. Urging the reader to “re-examine, re-think, and reconstruct taken-for-granted data collection processes,” the authors highlight how researchers must continue to combat the embedded inequalities of the pandemic and critically investigate the gender implications of their research techniques.
Crises rarely affect all people equally. Their worst impacts are often gendered, and felt more by the vulnerable and less by the privileged. Trying to redress this inequality is always a good strategy and the focus of many innovative programs. It is no less urgent to do so in research and data collection. All of us who are involved in the latter are not merely objective observers, but active participants in a gender (and gendered) system.